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London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine

Conducting international research to understand what prospective students need from the school’s website

The London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) was looking to redesign its website. It commissioned Fluent to understand what its users need from the website, what problems potential applicants are facing and how it could improve its website to suit their needs.

The challenge

The LSHTM wanted to ensure that they offered the best website possible for prospective students and for scientists interested in tropical medicine and epidemiology.

The main challenge was reaching potential applicants throughout the world, sometimes from places with poor digital access.

What we did

For this piece of research, we followed a three-pronged approach. We wanted to understand the school’s vision for the new website, the wider digital landscape in this area, and its users’ needs.

We set up a number of stakeholder workshops to help us define the vision for the new website. We conducted a detailed competitor analysis by looking at the online presence of other successful universities, and conducted an expert review of the current LSHTM website to identify potential areas for improvement.

To identify the user needs we ran an online survey on the school’s website. From this we gathered feedback and arranged follow-up remote testing sessions with potential applicants from 33 different countries, including Haiti, Syria, Nigeria, Trinidad, Pakistan, Australia and Japan. We also attended an open day to meet potential applicants in person and conduct short guerrilla testing sessions.

The outcome

Our range of research gave the LSHTM clear and validated evidence on which to plan the redesign phase. This included a detailed list of findings and recommendations, a list of user stories, a clear vision statement, and a manifesto of digital principles.